Meet Mimus, The Curious Industrial Robot

Published at : 23 Dec 2025

Mimus is a giant industrial robot that's curious about the world around her. Unlike in traditional industrial robotics, Mimus has no pre-planned movements: she is programmed with the freedom to explore and roam about her enclosure. Mimus has no eyes, however — she uses sensors embedded in the ceiling to see everyone around her simultaneously. If she finds you interesting, Mimus may come in for a closer look and follow you around. But her attention span is limited: if you stay still for too long, she will get bored and seek out someone else to investigate.

See full project details here: https://atonaton.com/mimus

Project Credits:
Mimus was commissioned by The Design Museum in June 2016 for their inaugural exhibition, Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World. She lived at the museum for five months: from November 24th, 2016 to April 23rd, 2017.

Development Team:
Madeline Gannon, Julián Sandoval, Kevyn McPhail, Ben Snell

Sponsors: Autodesk, Inc., ABB Ltd., The Frank-Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry

Exhibition
Fear And Love: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/fear-and-love

Video
Charlie Nordstrom: http://charlienordstrom.com/

Music:
"See Through Walls" by Anitek, and "Away with the Night" by Ketsa
Available on Free Music Archive — freemusicarchive.org
Under CC by license — Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International